Salem’s Lost Gallows - Proctor’s Ledge

A rocky outcrop called Proctor’s Ledge has been confirmed as the site where 19 people accused of witchcraft were hanged in Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem witch trials were a series of prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693.

The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. Five others (including two infants) died in prison. The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria.

Hundreds faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Sometime in February of 1692, Betty Parris became strangely ill. She dashed about, dove under furniture, contorted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been caused by a disease called "convulsive ergotism" brought on by ingesting rye infected with ergot. Convulsive ergotism causes violent fits, a crawling sensation on the skin, vomiting, choking, and hallucinations. LSD is a derivative of ergot. Talk of witchcraft increased when other playmates of Betty began to exhibit similar unusual behavior. Everyone began to believe that the devil was real and close at hand.

Newly discovered Egyptian carnivore hunted our ancestors 40 million years ago

A new species of long extinct carnivorous mammal from Egypt has been identified by scientists. The animal, known as Masrasector nananubis, was once near the top of the African food chain and lived in the same ecosystem that was home to our earliest monkey-like relatives. Researchers suggest that our ancient ancestors could have once been hunted by Masrasector.

Masrasector was a small mammal that ate large rodents and other mammals.

The species name, nananubis, means 'tiny Anubis,' because it resembles the jackal-headed Ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife. Masrasector nananubis was part of an extinct group called hyaenodonts. Hyaenodonts were the only meat-eating mammals in Africa for over 40 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs, lasting until around seven million years ago. The specimens were discovered in a quarry called Locality-41, one of the most fossil-rich places from the beginning of the Age of Mammals in Africa.

Mes Aynak : World's Oldest Buddhist Temple

Mes Aynak is a site 40 km (25 mi) southeast of Kabul, Afghanistan, located in Logar Province. The site contains Afghanistan's largest copper deposit, as well as the remains of an ancient settlement with over 400 Buddha statues, stupas and a monastery complex. Archaeologists are only beginning to find remnants of an older 5,000-year-old Bronze Age site beneath the Buddhist level, including an ancient copper smelter. The site's orientation on the Silk Road has yielded a mixture of elements from Iran, China and India.

A Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan has run into complications after the executive leading the $3 billion project was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for corruption. Shen Heting of the state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a 30-year lease to build a open-pit copper mine at Mes Aynak in 2007.

Mummified Cats

Two thousand years ago, an Egyptian purchased a mummified kitten from a breeder, to offer as a sacrifice to the goddess Bastet. Between about 332 B.C. and 30 B.C. in Egypt, cats were bred near temples specifically to be mummified and used as offerings.

The cat was wrapped as tightly as possible, and had been placed in a sitting position before mummification, similar to the seated cats depicted in hieroglyphics from the same era. To make the cat take up as little space as possible, the embalmers fractured some of the cat's bones, including a backbone at the base of the spine to position the tail as close to the body as possible, and ribs to make the front limbs sit closer to the body.

Household pets were commonly mummified and buried alongside their owners in ancient Egypt. Many were also preserved as sacred offerings to the gods, and an entire industry existed that is thought to have churned out more than 70 million animal mummies.

Maenads - Raving Ones

Gregorio Lazzarini

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus. Their name literally translates as "raving ones." Maenads were known as Bassarids in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox-skin. Often maenads were portrayed as inspired by Dionysus into a state of ecstatic frenzy of dancing and intoxication. During these rites, the maenads would dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus, a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with a pine cone. They would weave ivy-wreaths around their heads or wear a bull helmet in honor of their god, and often handle or wear snakes.

The term maenad has come to be associated with a wide variety of women, supernatural, mythological, and historical, associated with the god Dionysus and his worship. Known for maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revelers whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy, the goal was to achieve a high state of enthusiasm. Celebrants’ souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of eternity. The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness.

Oldest Depiction Of Ancient Egyptian Demons

Researchers discovered the oldest depictions of ancient Egyptian demons, showing that demonic entities populated Egyptians' imaginations as far back as 4,000 years ago. These demons gripped their victims and cut off their heads. The demon Ikenty represented as a large bird with a black feline head on a Middle Kingdom coffin. The same demon appears as a large bird on a much older leather roll.

Guardian demons of Spell 145 of the Book of the Dead.

The sun god Ra, in the form of a Great Cat, slays a demon

Two demons, called In-tep, pictured as a dog-like baboon, and Chery-benut, depicted as unspecified figure with human head, appear as guardians at the entrance of a complex building guarded by other demonic entities. The texts link this building to the moon god Thoth.

See ----->http://psjfactoids.blogspot.ca/2016/10/egyptian-book-of-dead.html